Let us now dwell upon the sheer weirdness of U.S. politics.
Daily, thanks to The Colbert Report and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, we get a peculiar view of it all. That is, we see the extremes and the mockery aimed at oddballs, hypocrites and powerful people blowing a lot of hot air.
Yet for all the fun and games that we as Canadians can squeeze out of watching from a slight distance, there are themes and motifs that might leave us bewildered. The place seems at times to be the warped mirror image of a fundamentalist religious state. It's not the Bible at the heart of it. The U.S. Constitution is like a holy book and the intentions of "the framers" and others, long dead, are argued over incessantly. The Supreme Court seems to be the equivalent of a group of mullahs; not so much legal experts as theologians subtly drawing meaning from an ancient document and mainly concerned, as final interpreters, about purity of thought.
There are, of course, the political dynasties, too. We've had two of the Bush clan and might see two of the Clinton clan in power. It all seems oddly retrograde in a republic.
And then, looking back, there are the Roosevelts. Consider them.
That's what Ken Burns does in his new epic documentary series The Roosevelts: An Intimate History (Sunday, PBS, 8 p.m.). Using his trademark concentration on voluminous photographs, carefully selected archival footage, letters read aloud and the views of historians, Burns tackles a huge chunk of American history.
This seven-part, 14-hour production – continuing weeknights next week on PBS – covers more than a century. It starts with Theodore's birth in 1858 and concludes with Eleanor's death in 1962. In that time span, Theodore would become the 26th president of the United States and his niece, Eleanor, would marry his fifth cousin, Franklin, who became the 32nd president. Burns told TV critics earlier this year that he (and collaborator Geoffrey Ward, who wrote the script) has always found the Roosevelts "irresistible, deeply flawed, inspirational, complicated human beings central to an understanding of the national narrative that we call an American history."
Indeed. What grand events of American history are covered – the creation of national parks, the digging of the Panama Canal, the New Deal programs, entry into the Second World War and defeat of Germany and Japan, the Cold War and struggles for civil rights at home. As for the "intimate" history, there is promised "a human story about love, betrayal, family loyalty, personal courage and the conquest of fear." Burns delivers on that – the alcoholism, depression and other illnesses – often offering extended psychological analysis that never feels pedantic or overcooked.
There is, understandably perhaps, an air of worship at times. Burns, like many Americans, looks on the era of Franklin Roosevelt ("an undistinguished student and an indifferent lawyer," we're told at the beginning) as a time when the relationship between government and citizens was good and true, and a vast improvement on what exists now. At the same time, nostalgia is tempered by other voices. George Will offers a penetrating comment when he says, "Following the example of the first Roosevelt, the second Roosevelt gave us the ideal of the shimmering, glimmering presidency and with it the notion that complex problems could yield to charisma. This sets the country up for almost perpetual disappointment."
This is not to say that Burns's latest epic is flawless. There is such sprawl to the time span, characters and connections that someone not closely familiar with the period might feel plunged into a dense Victorian novel, struggling to see the threads of the narrative as the actions of multiple characters unfold. Yet the threads and themes do emerge. Eleanor Roosevelt, in particular, emerges with clarity, her letters being read by Meryl Streep in the production.
One theme that Burns draws out, and one that is meant to connect to today's United States is a series of reminders that the Roosevelts were, in today's vernacular, part of the 1 per cent. Yet they saw public service as a duty and government not as a hindrance, but as an enabler in a strong economy.
The point of it all, one feels, is delivered in the first hour. We're told that while Thomas Jefferson felt a government can only do what is specifically enumerated in the Constitution, Theodore Roosevelt came along a century later and believed that government can do anything that is not prohibited in the Constitution. And he was a Republican. All of which helps illuminate the weirdness of today, doesn't it? It's a start, anyway.